Email Guidelines For Purchasing Professionals

Are Your Emails Getting The Attention You Want?
Purchasing and supply management is one of the busiestprofessions. Therefore, you and I use the convenience ofemail to communicate with our superiors, internal customers,and suppliers.
This convenience often leads to sloppiness. Sloppy emails arefrequently ignored or misunderstood.
Use these guidelines to optimize your emails.
Limit The Topic - If you have more than one topic to discusswith the recipient, send one email per topic. When topics arecombined, the recipient is likely to withhold a reply untilALL matters can be addressed.
Write Short Paragraphs - Limit your paragraphs to twosentences in length for optimum readability. Four shortparagraphs are better than one huge paragraph.
Write Short Sentences - Strive for an average of about nine to14 words per sentence. If a sentence uses more than 20 words,try to split it into two separate sentences.
Use Lists - If you describe three or more points about acertain topic, use a bulleted list not a long sentence.
Draw Attention To Questions - If you ask a question, put it ina paragraph by itself. When asking multiple questions,number them and place each on its own line.
Have A Clear Call To Action - Tell the person exactly what todo. An example would be: "Please review this document andemail your suggestions to me."
State Any Deadlines - If you need a response by a certaindate, indicate the date by which you need it. When using adate, be sure to specify whether you want the response "on" or"no later than" that date.
Be Service Oriented - When replying to internal customers,thank them in your first sentence and thank them in your lastsentence.
Proofread - Ensure compliance with these guidelines and lookfor spelling/grammar errors, omitted words, and lack ofclarity.